Fears grow over place in the qualifiers

Hurling/Dublin managerial crisis: The Dublin hurlers trained alone in St Anne's Park in Raheny last night amid growing fears there won't be a new management team in place in time for the All-Ireland qualifier series, which starts on Saturday week.

There is now a strong chance Dublin won't be competing in the qualifier series unless the county board are able to put together some sort of management team in the coming days.

A statement released by the Dublin hurling panel on Sunday evening made clear their intentions not to co-operate with the original interim management proposed by the board, and which included chairman John Bailey at the helm. In the meantime they decided to train alone in the hope the issues can be rectified in time for the All-Ireland qualifiers.

Defender David Sweeney, one of the more senior members of the team, admitted yesterday evening the board didn't seem to be any closer to finding a solution. "The ball is definitely in the court of the county board right now," said Sweeney. "Obviously we want to come to some sort of agreement on this as soon as possible. Training alone is far from ideal but that's the way it's has to be.

"And I can't see us playing in the qualifier series if there's no one there to pick a team. We'll have to wait and see, but I don't think we can put forward a team if there's no management team in place."

The players organised a meeting at the weekend, which was attended by 31 members of the panel, and they all committed to training last night and again on Thursday in the hope that something could be agreed upon at county board level. They also decided to draft a letter listing their grievances, which they wanted to be read out at the next meeting of the board.

According to Bailey, no such letter has yet appeared at the board's offices, and there wasn't any definite meeting planned at county executive level to finalise the matter.

"It's something we're working on all the time," said Bailey, "and we'll meet whenever we have to. But I'm not particularly worried about the qualifiers. Our main concern is to get a new management in place with the right structures to move the thing on."

Bailey also denied there had been informal talks with former Dublin football manager Kevin Heffernan, who had reportedly agreed to come on board along with former county dual star Mick Holden, and also Marty Morris, who was manager before the ill-fated appointment of Humphrey Kelleher. "That was never a runner," said Bailey. "We're approaching this in a sensible way, and I've seen enough overblown headlines like that."

Sweeney also admitted the first he heard about the possible appointment of Heffernan was in certain newspaper reports. With time fast running out, the list of potential candidates to take over the job remains perilously thin, and so does Dublin's chances of playing any more competitive hurling at senior level this summer.